Author Dave Gibbons Offers Refreshing Outlook on Race and Faith in New Memoir
By all accounts, advisor, public speaker, and spiritual leader Dave Gibbons has had a highly productive career. As a senior advisor for over 15 years to such cultural luminaries as rapper Jeezy, artist Marina Abromovic, and Netflix executive Dan Lin, Gibbons has successfully influenced the careers of many in the world of entertainment, sports, government, and finance.
Despite his friendly approach to the corporate world, the affable Gibbons has had to overcome many obstacles in his life, including a surprising diagnosis of PTSD, shocking revelations about his family and childhood, and battling systemic racism at a prominent Christian university while a student in the 1980s.
In his latest book, The Shape of My Eyes - A Memoir of Race, Faith, and Finding Myself, Gibbons offers a fresh, sometimes humorous outlook on coming to grips with his Korean heritage and offers sage advice on how to overcome family secrets and address racism.
I recently sat down with Gibbons to discuss his troubling experience growing up as an Asian-American, the revealing DNA test that changed his life forever, and what it takes to forgive when nothing in life seems to make sense.
For every author, there always seems to be a trigger, a tipping point, a moment where you say to yourself, “I have to write this book!!” For The Shape of My Eyes, what was that moment for you?
Well, it's interesting. It was like a series of moments that happened just right one after another. One was a diagnosis that I had PTSD. So, I'm in my fifties at that time with that diagnosis. I'm wondering where did that come from? And then, number two, I did a DNA test and I realized that my father, who I thought was my biological father, wasn't my father in terms of genetics. And thirdly, the pandemic had started and the George Floyd moment happened. All these things tied together because of race issues and identity. So, I just started overflowing. I need to write about these hidden things in my life that I didn't know about and try to figure it out.
If you don’t mind, could you share about your experience growing up in the United States as a Korean-born Asian-American and what you had to deal with in regard to racism?
I grew up in Maryland where it was very idyllic in the rural hills. My dad called me Nature Boy because I ran around in my Spider-Man underwear without my shirt. I felt like I was one with nature, that the animals knew me and they could talk to me. I could talk to them. But then, when we moved to Arizona when I was in fourth grade, it became very different. I was definitely called out and seen as someone who was not like them, the people in the state. Kids started calling me “China Man” and “Slant Eyes”. And I would go home and just look at myself in the mirror saying, ‘Wow. It's all about my eyes.’
And you know, I'm only 10 years old. So, suddenly you're thrust into this whole world of racism, prejudice, and discrimination, of which I didn't even know the terminology. And then I saw it happen, not only amongst my peers in elementary school, but their parents would do the same thing. They would make slant eyes and they would laugh with their children. I think that marked me as a young person. And then as I evolved into my Christian faith, I wouldn't really face it deeply until I went to university. I went to the biggest Christian university in America. It was called Bob Jones University. And it was a very fundamentalist evangelical school. They told me that I couldn't interracially date. They said that I could only date Asian girls. I couldn't date whites or any other race.
So, there's a confrontation of my identity again. That thrust me into the current moment where I saw what happened with George Floyd and the issues that we're having with the border. I said, ‘Wow, this stuff is not going away.’ It's systemic within our institutions. And so, how do we address this in a way where we're not counseling one another? This needs to be an honest, heartfelt discussion about what Jesus actually does in moments like this.
How would you encourage Americans to respond to these types of issues today?
Fundamentally, almost every Christian would hold to love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. And usually when we see that interpreted, we say a neighbor is someone like you. But that's what we call Jesus. We're reading our current moment into the ancient text, but the ancient text, when Jesus was asked that question, he was very Bruce Lee in His response. He says, “Let me tell you a story.” And he didn't give a direct answer. He told a Good Samaritan story. The Good Samaritan story really is a neighbor, someone not like you, that you would fundamentally not like and is culturally different from you. You may even hate this person, and you definitely wouldn't want your child to marry their child. For the Jewish person to marry, and potentially have their child marry a Samaritan, that was worse than going to hell.
So I would say, hey, you have the mindset of those who really know God is that we're supposed to love someone not like us, and that we're loving God. And that's what He says. If you love the least of these, you've done it unto Me. So, to love God is to love this outsider. You learn to love God. It's symbiotic. Fundamentally, if you get that, it changes your whole spiritual life. Practically, I would say what that then means in your neighborhood or in your city is ask yourself, who's the person that is maybe the most marginalized in my community? Who's the one that's way culturally different from me? And then make an attempt to not impose your beliefs on them, or move them into your direction, but just listen and learn. Ask questions about who they are, their culture, and their story. And you're going to find out there's a lot of similarities, but there's also some beautiful differences that will help you to not only understand yourself, but understand God.
As you mentioned earlier, I understand a DNA test ultimately revealed some earth shattering news about what you understood about your history. What can you tell me about that? How did that force you to confront the trauma that you unknowingly carried?
The catalyst was I wanted to prove my wife wrong. She had always believed that I was not half caucasian. You look in the mirror and say, of course you're not half, you look one-hundred percent Korean. But genetically you can look at 100 percent one way, but have two very different races. When I did the test and found out otherwise, I said, ‘Whoa, there's some secrets that my parents never told me.’ That forced me to ask, ‘Who is my biological birth father? Why didn't my dad or my mom tell me? And did my dad even know?’ So, all these questions came about. And then with the PTSD assessment, that came about because I was feeling anxious. I had noticed that there were things when I was younger when I would have anxiety that no one ever talked about trauma, PTSD, or therapy. Mental health was looked upon as something that only a few people who have really severe problems need.
And even at that, it wasn't really valued amongst many in the Christian community. I learned to see how important it is, just like you have to take care of a liver problem or a kidney problem. If you have a brain problem, you need to see a specialist. I got the diagnosis of PTSD, and then I realized there's trauma that maybe I had that had not really healed or dealt with. And then I thought about the traumas in my life. One was when my mom locked herself in the car the day that she found out that my dad had an affair. She was never the same after that moment. It was traumatic. We had many police cars come to our house that day. The second thing was when my mom passed away about four years later when she was killed in a hit and run accident by a drunk driver. She immediately died. And so, it forced me to deal with the wounds that I think maybe I just placated sometimes with scripture. Scripture's great but there's moments where the text just doesn't hit some of the deepest wounds. And you're not ready for it because you're in such shock or trauma.
Knowing this, what did or does it take to forgive, even when nothing seems to make any sense - or isn’t deserved?
For me it had to be some type of divine experience because I think I was so set on not engaging with my father anymore after he had an affair. But then, I literally had this moment walking across a football field in college. And I felt I heard God's voice. I don't say that often but I heard His voice and I heard Him say, ‘You need to forgive your father.’ And I immediately said, well, I have no feelings for him. It wouldn't be authentic. And then the response was, ‘Well, do you think my Son felt like going to the Cross?’
I said, it's not about how I feel. I need to do what's right no matter how I feel. I realized at that moment it was a choice I had to make. So I would tell people that a lot of it comes from asking God to show you what He sees or maybe to help you rethink about how you believe and imagine things to be. We have to penetrate some of our illusions that we have of ourselves, others, God, or our work. I think it really comes with asking God to help you see what He sees and to then do what He would do by faith. And then act upon it, even though you may not feel it. So, I started seeing my father like once a month for five years and talking to him. And eventually the feelings came, but it took over five years.
After people have had a chance to read The Shape of My Eyes, what would you like your readers to take away from that experience? What is your greatest hope for the book?
I wrote it for those who are searching for a home. I think there's a lot of people lost and they're trying to navigate their lives. And so, I'm hoping that through their story, they find hope, they find healing, and they find a place to belong. That there's some other people just like them and that my story is like their story. There's different characters, different actors, actresses, but there's similarities where they can find a place that's like their own home, a community they belong to.
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